The Right Honourable Baby: MP’s newborn fed by parliament speaker

The speaker of New Zealand’s parliament, Trevor Mallard, fed an MP’s newborn baby during a debate and the photos went viral.

The parliamentary speaker’s tweet congratulating the new parent received thousands of likes.

He was holding the new baby of Tāmati Coffey, a Labour MP from a northern New Zealand electorate, who is a former weather presenter. He also won New Zealand’s version of the British series Strictly Come Dancing.

Coffey, and his partner Tim Smith, who is from northern England, had a baby using a surrogate mother.

They told their story of finding an egg donor and surrogate mother as a gay couple on Television New Zealand’s “Sunday” programme.

“They’re just born to be dads, the two of them,” Smith’s mother told the programme.

Other MPs were also touched by the images of the baby visiting the House of Representatives.

“Who needs to see this today? Every single last one of us, that’s who. Here’s a brand new papa holding his newborn in our House of Representatives right now,” tweeted Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman.

Green Party MP Gareth Hughes tweeted: “Lovely to have a baby in the House, and what a beautiful one @tamaticoffey”.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made headlines last September when she brought her baby to the UN general assembly in New York.